Guardians of the Galaxy: The Universal Weapon iOS review

Know what I really enjoyed? The Guardians of the Galaxy movie. I reckon they did a stellar job of introducing what was to many a brand new strand of the Marvel universe, while deftly servicing Guardians aficionados with geek-friendly references.

Here we’re looking at the obligatory Guardians of the Galaxy app, The Universal Weapon (£1.99 @ App Store, £1.78 @ Google Play, £1.99 @ Windows Phone Marketplace), though to be fair, it’s actually very much its own thing – rather than a cheap, half-hearted cash-in.

Guardians of the Galaxy: TUW immediately wins brownie points by firing up the Caps Lock and yelling: “NO IN-APP PURCHASES AND NO INTERNET CONNECTION REQUIRED TO PLAY”.

Yes, there are literally no in-app purchases, so even if you wanted to pay to rush things along (lazy bar steward), Marvel Entertainment doesn’t want your money. That’s oddly refreshing in this age of freemium frenzy.

Anyway! What’s the dealio? Guardians of the Galaxy: TUW is a team-based real-time battle thingy, with the Story Mode stretching across 60+ levels. Some characters are best at range, others in close combat, while others are healers.

In each level, you’re tasked – simply – with destroying waves of enemies using your four chosen Guardians, each having his or her own special moves. Furthermore, some pairs work particularly well together (Groot and Rocket being an obvious example), unlocking high-octane combo moves.

As you progress, you can use your winnings to buy items and invest in weapon upgrades; apply ISO-8 for health, attack and defence boosts; and choose special moves from each character’s skill tree.

Clearly there’s plenty going on in Guardians of the Galaxy: TUW, but the pertinent question is: Is it actually any good?

Well, yes. While the actual battling can be quite samey, you can expect a little bit of story every few waves to break things up. The humour can be hit-and-miss, but it’s still a welcome distraction from the otherwise incessant brawling.

There’s also a fairly extensive cast of characters, going well beyond the five main protagonists in the movie – 25 in all. Again, you’re encouraged to experiment with character sets to unlock special combos.

On the poop side, the last level (at least I think it’s the last level) is nigh on impossible, and again it can be quite samey, but on the whole, I rather enjoyed Guardians of the Galaxy: TUW. Pretty good.

Pros

60+ levels

25 characters

The combo moves

Cons

Quite samey after a few dozen waves

The difficulty at the end

The humour can be hit-and-miss

Summary: Guardians of the Galaxy: TUW is a pretty interesting team-based real-time fight fest, with plenty of moves and skills and items and characters to keep things interesting. Thumbs up.